


Friends and Relations

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Canon Lesbian Character, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Gen, Mentors, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22272199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Every Thursday after school, Mac tutors Jane in maths and science.
Relationships: Jane Ross & Elizabeth "Mac" Macmillan, Phryne Fisher & Elizabeth MacMillan, Phryne Fisher & Jane Ross
Comments: 44
Kudos: 162





	Friends and Relations

**Author's Note:**

> For my 12 fandoms of Christmas!

Phryne was, Mac felt, a good guardian. Although her lifestyle didn’t lend itself to the sober respectability the Welfare might have preferred in Jane’s guardian, the Welfare had already seriously blotted their copybook by allowing twenty girls of varying ages to fall into such dangerous thieving company. Given their failings, Phryne’s expensive lawyers, and Inspector Robinson’s unlikely support, they didn’t have much leverage. And given Jane’s nature and experiences, Phryne’s extravagant but judicious character, occasional eccentric excursions, and habit of keeping her promises were ideal. Both Jane and Phryne knew what it was like to be hungry: there was always food in the kitchen. Both Jane and Phryne knew what it was like to be lied to by adults: Phryne told the absolute truth. Jane hungered for knowledge: Phryne threw open the doors to libraries and museums. Strangers made Jane uneasy: Phryne arranged her social schedule around Jane’s. Phryne had the essentials sorted, and that being the case a tough girl like Jane was unlikely to be bothered by evidence of a few flashy parties or the odd corpse kept well away from the house.

Still, Mac spoke from personal experience in saying that it did a girl good to have multiple role models and influences, and she meant Jane to have them. Jane had done some private tests before entering schooling, which had confirmed what they already knew - that Jane was a bright girl who had been given very few opportunities and would need support to thrive at Warleigh Grammar. She was swallowing Phryne’s library whole, and Phryne herself was tutoring her in French, but maths and science were hard to catch up without extra help. Dot could help with some of the maths - she had a very shrewd eye for accounts - but knew little about science, and Mr Butler’s scientific knowledge mostly seemed to be chemistry and physics of a very practical nature. And then there was the whole question of role models. So Mac rearranged her shifts in order to allow Jane to spend an afternoon with her after school every Thursday, for two hours’ tutoring in maths and science. Mac had thought at first that two hours was too long, but the girl showed no signs of tiredness. She soaked up knowledge like a sponge, and never seemed to have the same book in her satchel twice unless she had made a connection between two books and wanted to discuss it with Mac. 

Mac hoped that whichever girl was top of the class now hadn’t got too used to being there, because she was in for a fight which Jane Ross was going to win.

Afterwards, Mac took Jane out for dinner and introduced her to bits of Melbourne she had previously only seen through windows, or went walking down by the foreshore with her before it got dark and dodgy, or went to the Botanical Gardens before they closed to eat a picnic and look for all the worst poisons. Some people would have said this was a grim pastime for an innocent young girl. Mac said that appearances were deceiving.

It was a nice way to spend an afternoon, and Mac enjoyed the company. Jane often stayed over - in which case Mac had to be stern about not reading after lights-out, but the girl was very self-sufficient and never had to be chased to school in the morning - and it made a great difference to Mac’s otherwise solitary life. Her nieces and nephews spent very little time with her; their mother discouraged it, especially for the nieces. Not because Victoria knew about Mac’s preferences, no, but because if Victoria wasn’t careful Tilly and Pearl might also grow up to wear trousers and work in a man’s job, dear me.

(Mac always smoked more heavily when she’d been around her sister-in-law.)

Tilly and Pearl had been sweet kids, but now they were ten and twelve, growing up into Young Ladies, and not Young Ladies like Jane, either. Jane was fun to be around. Tilly and Pearl had been taught, not by Mac, that some things were just awfully nasty and to be avoided. Mac missed taking them fishing for crabs, or showing them the snails in the Botanical Gardens, and teaching them about all the things they absolutely should not touch because they would kill you stone dead. _Why does a nice girl need to know what a blue-ringed octopus does?_ Victoria had wailed.

Jane Ross wrote a paper on blue-ringed octopi. It was highly commended. Mac bought her an enormous ice-cream sundae on the strength of it.

One Thursday nearly a year after she’d come to stay with Phryne, Jane actually ran up the stairs waving a test, Cec laughing at the foot of them. “Mac! Mac! Look, I got ninety-three percent! I came first in my class!” 

“Good work!” Mac said, grinning. “Now get indoors and put the kettle on before you disturb Mrs Macready’s twins.” 

Jane shot indoors, and Mac went downstairs to collect her back from Cec and shake hands. “How are things, Cec?”

“Good. They’re good. Miss Phryne’s been a bit quiet so I daresay we’re due some excitement but for the moment it’s all good.” Cec smiled shyly and handed her a small card - an invitation. “Me ’n Alice have set a date for the wedding. We’d take it very kindly if you’d come along.” 

Mac thought of a white-faced, dark-haired girl sinking into a hospital bed, and a wharfie who had never met her before bringing her to the hospital but had stayed with her, holding her hand, until she finally fell asleep. Sister O’Malley had been so touched she’d actually given Cec a pillow when he too fell asleep sitting up in the visitor's chair. “Cec, I would not miss it for the world. Thank you. And please give my thanks to Miss Hartley.”

Cec tugged his cap. “Cheers, Doctor Mac.”

“Want a tea before you go?”

“Oh, no thank you. Got to hurry back. Dot’s young man’s coming round, and Bert and I want to be there just to... say hello, you know how it is. He’s a good lad for a copper, but Dot’s brothers don’t live in Melbourne any more.”

Mac arched an eyebrow. “You don’t think Phryne will take care of any possible difficulties?”

“Oh, I do, Doctor Mac.” Cec grinned. “The idea’s that there won’t be any difficulties.”

“I see.” Mac grinned back at him. “In that case, do give my very best regards to Constable Collins, won’t you.”

“Cheers, doc. I will.” Cec nodded in a friendly way and sidled out. Mac turned to go back up the stairs, and discovered that Mrs Macready had already stuck her head out of her door.

“Sorry about the noise, Mrs Macready,” Mac said, praying that they had not woken the twins, who were three months old and never seemed to sleep.

“Oh no, Doctor Macmillan, no trouble at all.” Mrs Macready’s thin face lightened. Mac made a mental note to suggest her sister came to visit and her husband went out to buy something rich and sustaining for a treat; Mrs Macready was getting thinner and thinner and more and more tired. “It’s so nice to see your niece visiting regularly. She is a smart girl, isn’t she? I never topped my class.”

“Oh, she is,” Mac said proudly, and then got stuck on an earlier sentence. “She’s not my niece, though - she’s the daughter of a friend. My... goddaughter, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s lovely too.” Mrs Macready glanced back into her flat. “Excuse me.”

Mac half-bowed. “Take care, Mrs Macready.”

“Oh, you too, Doctor Macmillan.”

Mac climbed the stairs slowly, and found her own front door half open and Jane very busy with the tea. 

_Eavesdropping_ , Mac thought affectionately.

“Well done on that test, Jane,” she said. “May I see?”

“Of course! I put it on the table.” Jane filled the teapot assiduously, and Mac picked up the test to look through it.

After a pause, Jane said: “I never had a godmother before.” She set the teapot carefully on the tray, and reached up to fetch down teacups.

“Well, I never had a goddaughter before either,” Mac said, without putting down the test. “So that makes us about even, don’t you think?”

Jane’s whole face crinkled up in a smile.


End file.
